Dervish And Daimon

The thoroughly modern Dervish is guided and instructed always by her daimon, working out her own salvation without fear or trembling but, rather, with a profound (if perpetually chastened) love for her host, the world.

She asks not for eternal bliss; only to live as one ought, i.e., as what Santayana called "traveling Spirit," an "ever-renewed witness, victim, and judge of existence, divine yet born of woman...continually turning the passing virtues and sorrows of nature into glimpses of eternal truth" (Santayana, My Host The World, 144). It is towards such a life that her daimon guides her; yet, inevitably, she feels the pull of Heidegger's das Man and, caught in the middle, composes her own story through the choices she makes during the ensuing struggle.

The goal of the dervish is faithfulness to her daimon and her life is the record of her struggle to be faithful.

Ja'far al-Sadiq, in discussing the Opening (al-Fatihah) of the Qur'an, identified three cardinal dimensions of this struggle as faith, desire, and gnostic wisdom. Faithfulness to one's daimon is never a given; the desire to be faithful must be awakened and action taken in pursuit of that goal. The end result is the gnostic wisdom capable of "turning the passing virtues and sorrows of nature into glimpses of eternal truth." The road is a long one and the hazards are many.